


A Bowl of Soup

by dashakay



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 05:43:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5816392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashakay/pseuds/dashakay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wants to argue with him, to stubbornly inform him that she can take care of herself, she’s a grown woman and a medical doctor, but she’s just too tired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bowl of Soup

They begin again over a bowl of soup. 

_Soup._  

Funny, isn’t it? 

After four days of cult hunting in Spokane, they return to D.C. to find it pouring—steady sheets of chilly rain flooding the gutters. Scully hardly notices, her head resting on the passenger side window, eyes fighting to remain open. She’s exhausted and cranky as a toddler from days of arguing with Mulder over the case, lack of sleep, delayed flights, junky airport food, and the cold that is beginning to seep through her sinuses. 

It really does feel like old times. 

Mulder insisted on driving her home. She vaguely hears him humming along to “American Pie” as he pilots his new car through the late-night city streets. “Took the Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry,” she hears him softly sing over the _thwap-thwap_ of the windshield wipers. 

Her eyes flutter open after she feels the car shudder to a halt. “Where are we?” she mumbles. 

“The very plausible state of Oregon,” he says and she feels her lips curl into a half-smile. 

They’re in front of her building. Mulder has somehow scored a rock star parking spot. He has a talent for that, she remembers. Lately, she’s been remembering more and more. 

“Can you pop the trunk?” she asks, scrabbling in her pocket for a tissue. “I need to get my suitcase.” 

“I’ll get it,” he says, and turns off the engine. Without the music on the radio, the sound of the rain seems much too loud. 

“You don’t have to,” she says. 

“Shut up.” He opens the car door. 

She makes a run through the freezing needles of the rain, stopping only to hold the door open for Mulder, who is lugging her suitcase and two Safeway bags. Grocery bags? Where did those come from? When did they stop at the supermarket? 

They stand side by side in the elevator, silent as it rises eight stories. She realizes that Mulder has never been to her apartment, the one she moved to after she left him in their little house in the Virginia countryside.  Somehow, that thought makes her feel suddenly shy. Is the bathroom clean? Did she take out the garbage before she left for Spokane? Will he even see or notice those things? Why does she _care_? 

She unlocks the door and smells only lemon furniture polish and a bit of dust, no garbage smell. She drops her handbag on the floor and resists the urge to join the bag on the floor. Fatigue makes her feel a bit dizzy. 

“Go to bed, Scully,” Mulder says. With a pang that’s almost physical, she misses when he’d say that in a lower, raspier voice, when he’d press her against the wall and whisper something like that in her ear. 

She shifts her weight from leg to leg. “Thanks for bringing my bag up,” she says, in a tone of dismissal. She very much wants him gone, wants to change into her pajamas, curl up and sleep for a week. 

“I’m not leaving,” he says, his jaw set. “You’re tired, from the sound of it you’re sick. I’m going to make you some soup.” 

She wants to argue with him, to stubbornly inform him that she can take care of herself, she’s a grown woman and a medical doctor, but she’s just too tired. She simply turns on her heel, heads for the bedroom and changes into her favorite pair of pajamas, the navy and white flannel ones. 

As she buttons the pajama top she thinks about those years living together in their house, how she worked so hard and so long to take care of him, to motivate him, to cheer him up, to get him to focus on something, _anything_ , besides his quest. All the dinners she cooked, the flowers she cut and put in vases, all those days and nights of hoping it would get better. And she remembers all the nights she’d come home after a sixteen-hour day at the hospital, weary to her very middle-aged bones, to find him slumped in front of the computer, barely noticing as she entered the room.  All those long nights when he wouldn’t come to bed, stuck as he was in the murky depths of the Internet. 

Maybe this is a good sign. 

She grabs a fuzzy throw blanket off the foot of her bed and brings it into the living room, along with a few pillows. From the kitchen, she can hear the sound of rhythmic chopping. In the beginning, Mulder declared himself as the cook and spent hours in the kitchen, painstakingly working his way through Mark Bittman’s _How to Cook Everything_. He burned his first pot of chili but marinara sauce was a resounding success. In time, he mastered apple pie and beef stroganoff, oatmeal-raisin cookies and kung pao chicken. 

She should have known things were heading south when he stopped cooking and stocked the freezer with bean burritos and chicken fingers instead. 

Scully settles herself on the plush couch, wrapping the blanket around her body like a cocoon. Her throat hurts and her eyes are burning.  She listens to the sizzle of what she imagines to be onions and garlic hitting hot oil in a pan. Even though her nose is stuffed up, she imagines their savory scent. 

For a moment she dreams of other times, years ago, when it seemed like almost anything was possible. When they spent days in the sunshine, digging a garden. The time they made love in the kitchen, right there on the sturdy wood table, amid the breakfast dishes. That first fire in the hearth as the wind howled outside the windows. 

And then she dreams of the new possibilities, the two of them on the road again, seeking the truth and justice that has always eluded them, slippery as an eel. She dreams of dingy motel rooms and the smell of rental cars. 

She feels a cool hand on her forehead. “No fever. Good,” Mulder says. 

Scully struggles to sit up. “What time is it?” 

He shrugs. “Late. Good soup takes a while. You can’t hurry it.” 

Her stomach growls. “Is it ready now?” 

He nods. 

They sit at her kitchen table together. He’s managed to figure out where she keeps the dishes and the silverware.  She has a giant bowl of soup before her. Through her congestion, she can just make out the rich scent of chicken and something that almost tickles her nose. She grabs her napkin just in time for a sneeze. 

“What is this?” She swirls her spoon through the pale broth, flecked with deep green cilantro. 

“Chicken pho,” he says. “Guaranteed to cure what ails you.” 

She takes a careful sip, not wanting to burn her mouth. Her tongue dances with spices. “This is wonderful,” she says. 

He shrugs. “Aww, shucks.” 

“I thought you quit cooking, Mulder.” 

He sets his spoon down in the bowl. “I think that was probably a mistake,” he says. “Cooking is important. I forgot that a lot of things are important.” 

She reaches out and squeezes his arm. “Yeah, me too.” 

He smiles a crooked grin and she smiles right back. 

A bowl of soup is not a bad way to begin again. 


End file.
